The Meditation of Climate Change

By Paul Willett

As we walked into the pagoda I had no clue what to expect. Little did I know I was about to get a whole new perspective on climate change. I looked around, seeing amazing paintings and sculptures that all tell a different part of various stories within the religion. Luckily, in the past I took a class at the University of Montana about Buddhism, and I also had Nghi, a great friend (and our teaching assistant) who knows a ton about Buddhism, so she helped me understand it all.

While Nghi and I walked around the different pagodas, we discussed the story of the Buddha’s life in comparison to the images on the wall. As we went through the Buddha’s birth, journey to enlightenment, teachings and death, we admired all the distinct details we were surrounded by that helped tell the story.

The story was beginning to unravel itself through our eyes. I noticed that the message the Buddha was getting across was not too far from the message that we need to realize to help solve climate change. Some of these messages where very complex so I will do my best to simplify it.

The first connection I made was when the Buddha left to explore the villages, and he saw Monks, Nuns, old age, sickness and death. This reminded me of what it means to have an open mind and to expose yourself to new ideas on the world. This, I believe, is a very important aspect of helping you understand climate change.

Nghi and I continued to walk and talk we saw many different Demond’s on the walls. These Demond’s told different stories about how they tried to distract the Buddha from enlightenment. They would do this by trying to make the Buddha greedy with illusion. As a result, one of the Demond’s got so gritty and impatient it ate itself. This is a perfect metaphor for what could happen to the world if we don’t change our actions. We could take so much we end up destroying it.

A large portion of the beautiful paintings and statues were of the Buddha after he was enlightened. This was when he taught countless other people how to become enlightened themselves, which is exactly what we need to do with climate change. We need teachers and we need students. Without the Buddha’s teachings, Buddhism would have forever been left a mystery. If we do not share the knowledge of climate change with the world, no one will ever know the seriousness of it or how to actively prevent it.

As we were walking back to the bus from one of the pagodas, I got into a conversation with Max, who had also taken the Buddhism class at the University of Montana. We discussed some of the main ideas of Buddhism and how they relate to climate change. We discussed the middle path, a path you can take that Buddhism developed. This path means to not be greedy and to not get attached to things. That’s when every thing came together.

Such a big reason why it’s taking us so long to solve this climate change problem is because so many people in this world are attached to the old ways. Being greedy not only ties into trying to make as much money as possible through the world’s natural resources, but also it means putting yourself over others. Many things the Middle Way teaches could lead us out of these frustrations that are preventing us from getting out of the global problem of climate change we face today.

With all of the stress that comes with climate change it would do us all good to meditate. Not only to calm us all down but more importantly to help fight climate change.